Weddingbee Blog

Great question, I’m curious about that too…it’s hard to watch the very evident example of your parents with a failed marriage (or at least one you yourself wouldn’t want to end up in) and then be open and give yourself fully in a relationship. I think my parents are like yours, Miss Caramel, and there’s always that underlying apprehension for me. As a result, I tend to give up easily, which probably drives my bf crazy.

I am in a very similar situation—my fiance’s parents are divorced (one is remarried), and my own parents… well, they definitely struggle at times. I absolutely think that this has had a profound affect on both of us and the way we handle our own relationships.

Romantically, we both admit to having been very… cautious in the past. Even wary. Even to a fault sometimes. In terms of the “norm,” we’re getting married a bit later in life than the average couple. I am 31 and he is 37. But I think that our tendency to hesitate in our separate lives before we met enabled us to find each other in the end.

And I also think it makes us that much more confident that we truly belong together—We don’t want to become our parents, and we don’t want our future children to see what we saw (I don’t mean to bad mouth our families here, we both had wonderful childhoods for the most part and very much felt loved!), and we feel sure and secure enough with each other to trust that won’t happen.

Both our parents are still married, but neither pair has what either my fiance or I would call an ideal relationship. I think it did make us both more cautious about relationships–we are even older than Techie Bride, 37 and 43. And our siblings, too, all waited until their 40s to get married. Sometimes I wonder if divorce is better for the kids than allowing them to watch you lose respect for each other until they lose respect for you, too. I guess that’s a different debate. In any case, I think we both have very clear ideas of how we do not want to be treated, and how we feel we should treat each other. I hope this will lead to a happier marriage–otherwise I wouldn’t be taking the leap!

My parents had an awful marriage and the experience has inspired me to want a good one. I’ve always wanted “my own family” so I can escape the screwed up one I come from.

Of course, we all screw up our kids in different ways without realizing it. It’s scary! All you can do is hope, though, and try from the beginning to build a very strong foundation both in your marriage and later as a parent.

I also believe that you HAVE to go into with the idea that divorce is not an option. An easy out will always have a stronger pull than sticking with it in the hard times you’ll surely run in to.

i think it’s a crap shoot. there’s no formula. you have just as good a chance to stay married to someone you met in the parking lot 24 hours previous than someone you dated for years. i can’t decide if that makes me relieved or depressed.